Abstract

Kant borrowed the concept of autonomy from Sophocles, distorting its meaning. To be autonomous means that one sets one’s own law for oneself. Autonomy is a more or less prohibited dimension of humanity. Autonomy typifies the tragic hero. Autonomy co-exists with the rupture from the city: making his own laws, the autonomous one violates the law. The greatness of the tragic hero is determined precisely by his conflict as equal against equal with the whole of society as well as with the legislator whom all obey. Here, we will concentrate on the rupture with the city, and on whether this is an integral aspect of autonomy; hence collective subjects are excluded in advance from all authentic autonomy. Antigone, Oedipus and Philoctetes along with Euripides’ Medea are characterized as apolis. Between Aristotle’s naturally and contingently apolis there is a third category, the autonomous apolis, as he or she appears in tragedy.